FINDING BJARKE INGELS

The VM Houses, which maximize space through innovative Tetris-like construction.

You likely won’t forget the first time you lay eyes on a Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) building. The architecture studio founded by Dane Bjarke Ingels doesn’t build boxes so much as manifest esoteric concepts in glass and steel. Take VIA 57 West—a stunning pyramid- like structure rising from the moors of New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen. Just last year, when floating on a boat down the Hudson, this particular “courtscraper” (a skyscraper-courtyard hybrid) caught my eye: a vast gleaming tetrahedron reaching up 450 feet into the sky overlooking the river. It was brilliant, both in the summer sun’s reflection and in concept—like the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab Jumeirah hotel in Dubai, or a building plucked from the skyline of a utopian sci-fi flick.

The last time a building struck me with that sort of open-palm wonder was when I first saw Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. You question